By the time you read this, I will be standing in front of my JRNL 3367 (Interpretive and Editorial Writing) class, my start to the Spring 2017 semester at University of New Haven.
This is my fourth semester teaching there, and I have to say, the contrast between this semester and the first, say, two, is stunning. I slept last night. I got to my office early, I prepped a little bit (mostly looked over some notes) and I was only a little nervous. Maybe Real Teachers don’t get nervous, but I am not a Real Teacher, I think, because I am at least a little bit nervous every single time I walk into a classroom. Will this resonate with the students? Am I leading them in the right direction? Will this one catch fire? That one? What? It’s like alchemy, only scarier. Students pay a lot of money to attend my school, and I feel honor-bound to make their time with me worth it.
So wish me luck. Wish my students luck. Better: Wish for us a fruitful and challenging year that will end with that chalkboard above absolutely covered with great ideas. That would be awesome, thanks.
Dating Jesus 
Best of luck to you and your students.
Editorial and interpretive writing is an important part of journalism that must make the transition to digital if confidence in The Fourth Estate is ever going to return.
I have no doubt it will be a great class. I wish I could sit in.
And I think it’s good you get a little nervous. It shows you have respect for your students.
My friend, I’d nearly fly you back here to sit and and heckle in this class and the one following it, Communication and Law. You’d add a great deal.
I don’t fly as a rule…
…and oooooh…Communication and Law…took a class on that back in the day. I bet that’s going to be fun.
I would never heckle. I might challenge a bit. But I think what I would harp on most in 3367 is verification. My working definition of fake news is “assertion without verification.”
Traditionally, verification was optional in editorials, but the transition to digital and the lack of confidence infecting journalism, demands it IMO.
We agree. Or, as I said in class, no one cares how you feel or what you think. We do reported columns.